Prefuse 73

On record, Prefuse 73 sounds like a cyborg creation caught in a time trap somewhere between the hot buttered soul of the 70s and the Mantronix-era vintage hip-hop of the mid-1980s. But in person, Scott Herren, the man behind this digital fusion, couldn't be more real: Lately, thanks largely to posts made on his official website, he's become known as much for his fiery temper as for his genre-defining LPs. Recently, he made a visibly irritated retraction regarding the status of his forthcoming Piano Overlord album at the request of his label, Warp Records. And when his new album, Surrounded by Silence leaked to file-trading networks two weeks ago-- well ahead of its March 22nd release date-- he responded with outrage in a post that re-ignited webboards with the age-old debate of the effects of file-sharing on the music industry and its artists.

It would seem, however, that once Herren steps back from any situation, no matter how frustrating, he's more open to a big-picture view. In a post made on Friday, he clarified his stance with a cooler head: "I've been on the defense because I know this album runs a bit varied, hard to swallow and without knowing what the hell i'm getting at, it's the first record I've done where I had to listen to it and go; "what the fuck?"- you know? This music is for me, for you, for the next person. I'm trying to connect with you as personally as time allows and let you fans and supporters who have been down and got them edit records back in the day and don't hate for the sake of hating to say; I LOVE ALL OF YOU!"

Chalk it up to the heat of the moment, then. We recently met with Herren at his Prince Street creation pen, and he turned out to be among the more collected individuals we've talked with...

Pitchfork: I've got a million questions for your million projects.

Scott Herren: Hang on. Simon, what am I allowed to talk about?

Simon [from Warp]: The Prefuse 73 album. And then the Books EP. What else did he want to know about?

Pitchfork: I want to ask about a collaboration I've heard you've done with Sa-Ra Creative Partners.

Herren: Okay, I can't talk about the Piano Overlord project. I'll just break down what it is in the context of Prefuse work.

Pitchfork: Well, let's back up a minute. You've been all over the place. How does where you're living effect you creatively? Obviously, your location [Spain] had a lot to do with the development of your Savath & Savalas project.

Herren: With Savath and other music projects on that steez, that reflection mode, it works. For Prefuse, making beats and shit, I need a different environment. Even though coming here and working on it was... hellacious. It worked. Extinguished I did in Atlanta and that worked. That was more chill, though. In New York, I just had a kitchen and room to make Surrounded by Silence.

With the new album, there was definitely this oppressive element throughout the whole piece. I felt like I was stuck in the States sometimes as opposed to be able to go back to Spain and chill. It was a tight situation, but not because of anyone telling me I had to do anything. But to make this year work, tourwise etc., there had to be a deadline and there were so many people to get their shit down. And to count on me, of all people, to do that, that was big fuckin' deal. But I had a lot of help from friends.

Pitchfork: Do you think where you're at mentally has a greater effect than where you're at physically?

Herren: I think maybe the outcome of [Surrounded] was affected. I'm always questioning, though. I always listen to my own shit in perspective. Living here, I could hear the kind of oppression I was in. How I had to move my gear around whenever I put something down, 'cause I don't have a full wall of studio shit. Just a Rhodes, an MPC, and ProTools and a keyboard. Just moving one keyboard or synth is a pain in the ass.

Pitchfork: So I bet you get this a lot: Is Scott Herren your real name?

Pitchfork: What does recording under a number of different aliases bring to the table for you?

Herren: It gives me separation. I could just write all aliases and never expose myself. Think about Beans. You would never know his real name unless a journalist told you. I heard someone call Madlib "Otis" and he got pissed. But I think it's important because as an artist you're creating. It's what Doom strived to do and hid behind different aliases but they're all connected. But it kinda defeats the mystery, the whole fun of it, if people find out the truth.

Pitchfork: Well, if Doom ever dies, someone can take his place right?

Herren: True.

Pitchfork: So tell me about Piano Overlord.

Herren: I think the website describes it best. The album comes out on Chocolate Industries. It's a play-by-play of an island immigrant coming to U.S. to find bullshit and it's in response to laws set upon Cuba last May. There are so many things that are happening in Columbia or Haiti where people come here and can't find shit. You can go to Spain, and Cubans are looked down upon. It's strange how people chop up where you're from.

Pitchfork: Yeah, definitely. I'm mixed Mexican and Black and seeing how those histories converge was a real eye-opener for me. I didn't even learn Spanish in the home.

Herren: Yeah, yeah. It's a parallel with me. My mother's Cubana/Irish and my dad's Catalan. And that blows my mind. I'm obviously not a politician but I know that there are Cubano-Americans who passed these laws and they had the responsibility to take action to free their country from within and without. I don't understand how we treat Puerto Rico one way and then hold people in Guantanamo. As far as ethnicity, you grow up being sensitive to things around you and then become more proactive about it.

Pitchfork: Was there a turning point in terms of locating yourself ethnically? How has the search to identity played out with your music?

Herren: That's what the whole move to Spain was about. Knowing that's father's homeland and immersing myself in Catalan records, especially with the Savath records. Just attack the culture full-on. My first year there, I didn't speak. I just wanted figure out what the fuck was going on. It's about understanding and learning instead of finding the nearest British guy and asking him to party.

Pitchfork: With regards to the Piano Overlord material and the election, do you see yourself moving more politically?

Herren: I think a lot of people got political around the election 'cause Fahrenheit 9/11 schooled them on some shit. But then after the election, it faded and they realized that there was nothing to do. It was like, "What the fuck do we do now?" Where'd these people go? So in light of that, I'll probably move in that direction somewhat since there's a vacuum after everyone left. You know, I thought it was going to be a movement. It takes a community to start a revolution.

Pitchfork: The new album is very heavy on collaboration. You say you're trying to take hip-hop back to its early fusion roots.

Herren: It's a forgotten piece of hip-hop's puzzle. So much has changed from the indie DIY shit to the jiggy movement and so on. The whole collaborative effort, with the exception of the top-to-top industry collaborations, doesn't tend to exist. It's stuff that's been done before. You go to any old footage, you're gonna see stiff motherfuckers try to get down. It's a montage, and collaboration is an integral part of hip-hop culture.

Pitchfork: Do you see this more as a revival or a reworking?

Herren: With this record in particular, since I won't do another record that's all collabs, I wanted to make the point that I'm aware of putting people in different environments or pairing them up with different emcees and doing it tastefully or non-novelty is still crucial. I didn't want it to seem Starbucks-based. There's a whole segment of America who will never get my record.

Pitchfork: Do you think if the commercial environment changes you might be able to bridge that cultural barrier?

Herren: I dunno. Maybe they're in a different circle 'cause they're into the Dying Water emo band or something. Hip-hop can be a very closed-off community. Sometimes these barriers are demographic but it can be musical, too. The whole time Prefuse has been in existence I never had any relevance or connection to name to validate my music. It's just weird that indie rock heads and so on are connecting to my music. So now I got somewhat of an audience and a couple albums, maybe now I can bring some other things together to show what can happen. Maybe people will reject it but I try to use timing to my advantage. Using Sam Prekop on my first album was like me trying to leak my sound out.

Pitchfork: So let's back it up to the beginning. Where did you start musically?

Herren: I would say the starting point was the skating rink, booty shake, Dirty South, old school bounce shit. Sixteenth note [makes pop-clicking noises]. Fuckin' Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow, Rakim. But then my sister cockblocked me and she'd play Bad Brains and make me see them live. So I was this kid in the audience being like, "This shit is amazing." So being introduced to that music and then Dischord from my sister expanded me. From then on, it was open and I was just a receptor. I'd just tape the radio during the day just to see what was out there.

Pitchfork: Did your mother have any influence on your musical development?

Herren: My mother would take me to jazz concerts in the park and everybody was smoked out. She gave me the intro and then she forced me to play an instrument to keep me out of trouble. She'd make play a sport too. I started on the violin, like Suzuki method, then the piano that I retained. Then guitar and drums. But the piano's been consistent throughout.

Pitchfork: Who was the most fun to work with on Surrounded?

Herren: Has to be Beans. For one, the dude is openly a porn fanatic and I have the cable that you can order porn on. And he'd pick one and get amped and I grab him a Sapporo from the bodega. But that was funny to watch how hyped he'd get from watching a porn, like it's his simple pleasure.

The most interesting collaboration was probably the track with Claudia and Alejandra Deheza. We did it so fast. We'd do the basic drum machine track and get a guitar. And they have this link as twins or something; they'd whisper to each other and be like, "We got the harmony." That was some shit.

Pitchfork: What about this album makes it stand out from the rest of your releases?

Herren: The collaborations, definitely. I totally handpicked these people, just made it happen through a pretty oppressive time in my life. I was going through some shit and somehow it came together. As it far it standing out, it's people writing over every track. I feel like the whole project was to bring the collaborative essence of hip-hop's former. So I was trying to introduce artists to new cats on the record and pull them in. There's all this super dope music out there. So I'd maybe play Battles for Aesop Rock and him being like, "This shit is dope." And I only worked with people who I truly had a connection with. But it was a lot of material to work with, too. Simon [from Warp] gave me a lot of help. He'd be like "Dude, keep at one hour." So there's a lot of stuff I wanted to get on there.

Pitchfork: You didn't want to push for the double disc?

Herren: It's a lot for people to swallow as it is. It was like 40 tracks. So there will be a second disc. Tunde from TV on the Radio, Diplo, and a bunch of other names that didn't make the record 'cause 1) it's me, and 2) it didn't fit the cohesiveness of the album. If I had my way, I'd make it two hours, but there's gotta be limits. But I don't want any backlash. I totally had doubts about my whole record. I had to sequence the whole thing to make sense. But the listener has to be open to that. I have this split crowd with indie and hip-hop dudes so they both have to approach the album.

Pitchfork: Why'd you pick "Hideyaface" as the flagship single?

Herren: I picked El-P and Ghostface because they're two of my favorite MCs who rep two different camps. It's not racial or anything but they come from two totally different styles. And no one else is doing collabs like this. But it's not supposed to be jokey or ironic. I wanted it to make sense and make it actually work.

Pitchfork: How much of the album is live and how much is pre-recorded?

Herren: It's funny. For me, Prefuse is about making beats; it was more of sample-based project. But since I was working with more people, I had to play a lot more which I don't really like to do with Prefuse. [door slams] Have you met my assistant Jennipa?